Silver Nuggets: Senators/Penguins; Letang returns; Anderson's future; Bure interview

The Ottawa Senators return to action tonight as the the Pittsburgh Penguins bring their unique brand of crying and dirty play to Ottawa. Sidney Crosby may still be out, but there is still Matt Cooke, Kris Letang, Jordan Staal and Michael Rupp (among others) to fill the douchebag void. In case you didn't know, there is no team I currently hate as much as the Penguins.

The Senators, if you remember, were 16-17-4 after beating the Penguins on December 26. That was also the game that Kris Letang decided to hit Jason Spezza from behind into the boards. The Senators were on a roll, having gone 4-1-2 in their last 7 games and were inching closer to playoff contention. The Senators proceeded to win 1 of their next 15 games without Spezza and their season was over. The Senators have gone 8-8-1 since Spezza returned, a decent record but by no means spectacular. Maybe the injury did the Senators a favour and forced them to rebuild. Spezza's injury is also the reason I think the Senators can make the playoffs next year, they are not an awful team with Jason Spezza in the lineup.

On the other hand, since Spezza's injury, the Penguins lost Evgeni Malkin for the season, and Crosby is still out indefinitely. Karma is a bitch, Pittsburgh.

With that rant over, here are today's links:

Tonight's game

• Game preview. (NHL.com, Sens Extra)
• Everyone predicts a loss tonight, except Peter, who is on vacation. (Sens Extra)
• Craig Anderson will start tonight. (Ottawa Senators)
• Cory Clouston audio this morning after the pre-game skate. (Ottawa Senators)/

General Sens News

• Bruce Garrioch tries to get wonders if Kovalev will be booed tonight. My guess is yes, but it will be undeserved. He was one of our best offensive players this year, only Jason Spezza, Daniel Alfredsson and Erik Karlsson had more points at the time he was traded. (Sun)
• The Senators recalled Andre Benoit and Jim O'Brien from Binghamton. (Ottawa Senators)
• A look at what kind of contract Craig Anderson might expect and whether he wants to remain with Ottawa. (Cory Clouston Fashion Review)

More after the jump.

General Hockey News

• A great interview with Pavel Bure. Who didn't love Pavel Bure as a kid!? 437 goals in 702 games in the height of the defensive hockey era. (Yahoo!)
• On a comical note, the Montreal Canadiens fans are staging a peaceful protest outside the Bell Centre at their outrage over the situation in Libya over the fact that the NHL won't suspend a hockey player on their rivals. Firefighters will be on standby, just in case. I wonder if I can do this against Kris Letang. (Sportsnet)
• Pierre McGuire thinks Jonathon Toews should be a Hart Trophy candidate. If you wanted to consider all round play, then Alexander Ovechkin with 73 points and 215 hits (that is more hits than the top 5 scorers combined) would be more worthy than Toews. My personal vote would be for Daniel Sedin, but sadly I don't get a vote. (Yahoo!)